A Hand To Hold
by The Delectable Miss Pond
Summary: "Are you happy, love?" Alec asks before they go to sleep. You're happy, Emma notes, as she gently traces his features with her finger. That makes her happy, too. So incredibly happy. "Of course." (Alec and Emma Post-Hide)


**So. This terrible, probably, but this took me all day and I'm posting it anyway. I'm sorry. I'm ill, blame it on ilness! But, anyway. This is a depiction of the life of Alec Palmer and Emma Grayling from the most recent episode of Doctor Who, 'Hide', because I've fallen in love with their characters and I think they have a beautiful relationship. I've probably done millions of things wrong, so please comment on what you liked and what you didn't! Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!**

11

_What about us, Emma and me… What do we do now?_  
_Hold hands, that's what you're meant to do, keep doing that and don't let go._

10

They start by holding hands.  
Just like the Doctor told them to. As he, Clara and Hila disappear in to that big blue box, Alec leans over and gives Emma's hand a gentle, hesitant squeeze. He almost expects her to pull away, perhaps ignore it, but instead she clasps her own hand back around his, very tightly, as though afraid that letting go would be the end of something which has not yet begun, As the wind picks up around them and they are once more left alone, they watch their very distant future fade away in front of their very eyes, and realise that the one way to get it back is by making it happen.  
Alec has loved Emma since the day he lay eyes on her. Emma has never been far behind. They are soul mates, as some people would put it, if either of them believe in that sort of thing, and not only have they been destined all along, but they have fallen into that type of love that emotionally binds people in ways they can never imagine, more so in the case of Alec and Emma. She can see people's feelings and thoughts some of the time, at times when she can connect with the person in a certain way. But she connects with Alec so often and with such depth and intensity that she can't help but realise that she must have some sort of a deeper link to him than most. She can read every thought, every feeling, every tear, every laugh, they can share so much with little effort, and they find themselves so very surely in love and so connected by both their thoughts and the entwined and irrevocably in love with each that they forget to feel guilty about all the fears they had relating to their love and instead find themselves quite clearly  
As Alec and Emma walk hand in hand back through the garden to the old steps of Clevedon House, they realise that though their future is a new and exciting thing, perhaps it isn't quite as far away as it may appear.  
_This is where it all begins_ Alec thinks, a bright, if ever so nervous smile appearing on his face.  
And he gives a blushing Emma Grayling a kiss on the cheek.

9

After a time Clevedon House becomes their home.  
They realise that they spend so much time there that they might as well stay permanently. It may be dark and isolated, but they also find that without the haunting it is something quite beautiful. Living in the midst of a moor suits them quite well. Living with only the company of each other in a house with such character and beauty is something quite wonderful, both discover. They continue their experiments, of course with dramatic differences now that they have discovered that the ghost is in fact not a ghost but an echo. There are more echoes out there, perhaps, ones they can help like they did with Hila. Alec wants to help as many people as he condemned, and Emma wants to help Alec until the day she dies.  
_Alec is afraid of not being something._ Emma notes, on one of the many times she reads his feelings. _But he is already something. Something important. Something amazing._  
The two never talk about them. Not as a couple, not together. There's no flirting or kissing. Just them, Alec Palmer and Emma Grayling, talking and working, with the occasional finger brush or peck on the cheek. There's no need to whisper sweet nothings or overly show affection, because each of them knows how precious the other is and indeed sees them, and there is no need to display it excessively. They talk. Talk about work, talk about the news, the weather, the world in general. But never about themselves.  
Well._ Almost_ never. There is, of course, one time.  
"Emma?" Alec begins, almost unsure as the girl looks up from her newspaper. He looks at her for a second, taking a nervous gulp of his coffee. "I love you."  
"I know." Emma grins and nods quickly, looking down to the floor, and then, "I love you too."  
"Will you marry me then, Emma?" He asks. This time she drops the paper and stands up, a hand to her mouth. Words begin, questions, but it is all a blur. Perhaps they said something important, something so blindingly, incredibly important, but neither listen, because they cannot fathom the possibility of it being more important than the one thing they do hear. The beginning of Emma's acceptance.  
Which is cut off by a long awaited kiss.

8

Alec and Emma are married before the end of the year.  
They go into the village, find a quaint little church, a suit, a dress. It's a quiet affair; Emma's parents, Alec's brother, a few people from the village they count as close acquaintances, if not friends, and the three local travellers who sit at the back, hidden by their sunglasses and tight, zipped up coats. Neither of them have ever been happier, while they stand speaking the words they are told to, hand in hand, eye to eye. It snows that day. They walk out of the church to a ground as white as Emma's dress. They both laugh, and Alec picks her up and carries her home, where they sit in each other's arms, realising how very real their future has become.  
Nothing really changes after that. Not much. Only that they stop being Alec Palmer and Emma Grayling, and instead become Alec and Emma Palmer. Together. As one. They don't settle down into some sort of suburban married life, anything but. Their marriage is not a huge deceleration, a huge change. It is the beginning of their lives, the future they have been shown, the existence they long to find together. Something which each of them hails as so precious, so longed for, that they hold each other so tightly, not just their hands but their entire bodies, wrapped around each other because each of them is so afraid to let go.  
"Are you happy, love?" Alec asks before they go to sleep.  
'You're happy.' Emma notes, as she gently traces his features with her finger. That makes her happy, too. So incredibly happy.  
"Of course." She answers as she light flickers out.

7

It is two years after the wedding that they talk about children.  
Alec thinks that he is too old, too damaged, until Emma points out that Hila is the distant child of their own, and children are inevitable, and within a few months, the two are greeted with a small and beautiful bump, a girl, to be exact. They begin to joke with the names Doctor and Clara, Hila perhaps, but nothing seems to fit. Instead , their baby girl becomes Jane. Jane Palmer. And though neither realise where they found it, they both agree that it's a wonderful name.  
When Jane is finally born, she is beautiful. No one finds another way to describe her. She is small, but she has her mother's eyes and her father's nose, and a small, scrunched up face which manages to connote innocence quite easily. Her parents bring her home through the village, proudly showing her to anyone who walks by. At home, Emma sings her lullabies, Alec tries to read her science lectures (much to her mother's dismay), and both of them love her more than anything. "She likes Jane." Emma assures Alec as they lean over her cot. "The name, I mean. She thinks it's pretty." This pleases them both. They made the right choice.  
As Jane grows up, she becomes more intelligent and more aware. She is an empath, like Emma, but they didn't really expect anything less. She lives in a happy house, with happy people, so there is not really any reason for them to worry quite yet. She makes up little games for herself around the house, involves her parents, too. One moment she's a princess, the next a pirate, a nurse, a dancer. Her dad shows her some of the experiments, lets her help with some, and Emma tells her stories about Hila, about how important she is not only to the world and to time but to Jane herself. Jane should be shocked, afraid perhaps, they are both aware of that, but she's not. She resolves to be an explorer when she grows up, just like Hila, and make them proud of her.  
They take her to see Ghostbusters as her first film.

6

Perhaps they shouldn't, but they take Jane to the Christening of Clara Oswald.  
An invitation appears through their door. It's not signed, it just tells them where and when to go. They sit very quietly, and avoid talking to anyone, but listen so intently to the words. They want to thank Clara, after all she is the reason that they are now living their future, and they suppose that this is the only way to do that. They chuckle at how very different she is; a little girl, younger than Jane, crying on her mother's lap, not even able to speak or walk yet. The room is packed, the expect, or at least they hope, that they won't be noticed through the singing and the words. They are about to leave when they are approached by the girl's beaming mother, holding a sleeping Clara in her arms.  
"'Ello," She says, and both Alec and Emma notice the very many qualities she shared with her daughter. "You three alright?"  
"Oh yes, thank you." Emma speaks on their behalf, one hand in her husbands and the other clasped around her daughters. She can't see the woman's feelings, she doesn't have that connection, but she can feel Clara's. _Peaceful_, she smiles at the girl who begins to awake, and adds with a chuckle, _hungry_. "It was a lovely service."  
Alec looks at the little girl's now open, very familiar eyes. "And she's a lovely girl."  
"Ahh, she's our treasure." The woman grins proudly. "Say hello, Clara."  
Clara emits some kind of noise, not quite hello exactly, but a loud, excited gurgle which makes them laugh. "She likes you." Her mother informs them, and they look at each other with a smile. Good, they think.  
The two see their future once again, this time as a tangled web which they find themselves caught up in, what it always has been, and always will.  
Neither seem to mind. It's a wonderful future, all the same.

5

Jane grows up and she fades from them.  
She goes to college, moves away. Their house seems quite empty once again. Emma has that sinking feeling, the sense that she has no other purpose in life, not any more. Alec proves her wrong. They can do so much, together, help so many more. They begin to ghost hunt. People report hauntings to them, and they go along and see. Some are just stories, ridiculous over-active imaginations playing tricks on people, but some are real, people looking for help. Emma speaks to them, and Alec brings them back. They can't take them back to their own time, not like the Doctor could, but at least they are alive, and safe. They always have a sense of achievement, one more person saved, one more life given a chance. It's something which both can not only do together, but also share those feelings of pride and relief.  
They don't seek fame as ghost hunters. They don't advertise. Their talent is spread, through word, through the people they've helped, and that is the way it should be. They never ask for any payment, either. They see no need, if they have everything they want in each other and in Jane. They write to her, often, and sometimes she will write back. She's studying engineering, somewhere far away, and tells them how much she enjoys it, how much fun it is, occasionally how much she hates the food, all in jest, of course.  
"Is she-" Alec begins.  
Emma closes her eyes and nods, tracing her daughter's words lightly with her index finger before it flattens over the page. "Almost as much as we are." A smile appears on her lips, spreads to her eyes, to her face, to Alec.  
"Good." He nods, placing his hand on top of his wife's.

4

Alec tries not to waver down the hospital corridor.  
He can't concentrate. He needs Emma, but he can't tell her. Not yet. There's no fear, no anger, just sadness. He doesn't want to leave her, but he has to, he has no choice. He holds that paper in his hand, firmly, just while he reads it, then he folds it up, hides it in his pocket, and keeps it all quiet. He doesn't tell a soul, he just goes on with his life, like the ever so brave man he is. He's old now, and he's getting weaker, but he accepts that, because Emma does, and that's all he needs. Emma.  
She waits for him by the door. He tells her that he's just been into the village to collect a few things from the grocers, nothing special, and she asks nothing more. She's cooked his dinner, as per usual, and they eat it in silence. He's afraid to say anything to her, in case he tells her and he's not ready for her to know. Not yet.  
They barely speak at all that evening. Emma reads the paper, Alec continues tweaking with some machine which doesn't really need tweaking with, and they drink their tea with no conversation at all. Emma knows that something is wrong, she always does, but he doesn't want to talk about it, so she says nothing. Until they go up to bed, and she looks at him with wide, tired eyes.  
"You're sad." She tells him, the assurance in her voice making it clear that she doesn't want him to deny it. "Why?"  
"Just tired, love." He replies.  
"No. You're sad, and I know it. Tell me why."  
Alec shuts his eyes firmly. He doesn't cry, he's not that man, but he wants to. He feels like crying. Instead he speaks, a lump catching the words in his throat.  
"Emma, love." He plays with her hair, looks at her face, twists her fingers around his. Anything to distract from what he has to say. "Beautiful, strong Emma. I have to tell you something."

3

It turns out that there is no easy way to tell your one love that you are dying.  
But in retrospect, Alec tells Emma in the best way he can. He doesn't use flouncy language to belittle it, doesn't try to make it sound less serious than it is. He tells her straight out, exactly as it is, everything she should know. She rejects it for a moment, tells him that he's got it wrong, there must be something they can do, but there isn't. She knows it. She's just searching for answers down a dark and empty road.  
She stands up, begins to scream about how unfair it is, how a man who has saved so many and given so much to the world should be repaid in such a horrific way as this. Alec can't calm her down, anything he says she ignores, shrugs off, screams at, cries until the floor is soaking wet. Eventually she just collapses. She's let everything out, there's nothing else there. Alec wraps an arm around her, brings her towards him, won't let her go, rocks her until she sleeps.  
When they wake up, they look at each other. Each of their wide red eyes. They hold the silence for a minute longer, because this is them together, how it should be, and they don't want anything to take that away.  
"What do we do now?" Emma spits eventually. "What do you need."  
Alec puts on a smile, how real it is neither of them know, but it is encouragement. Something important. "Well. Right now I need a hand to hold. And I've always liked the feel of yours, love."  
Perhaps Emma smiles properly then. She laughs, certainly, through the sadness and fear and all the mad, impossible feelings her and Alec share, and offers her hand.  
"Anything."

2

Alec and Emma go hand in hand to Brighton and Edinburgh and Cornwall, and all the different places they've always wanted to go. They run along the beach, eat fish and chips, visit the towns, meet the people. They discover all the different places around them, how very different they are to Cleavedon and the life they've always known. The world is beautiful, and they are happy for what they worry will be the last time.  
"What do I do?" Emma asks absent-mindedly, as they sit on a bench on the promenade, fingers entwined. By now Alec is weak, and hesitates with every move, but it doesn't stop him from sharing these precious last times with his wife.  
"You live." Alec instructs her. "You don't sit around mourning for me. You won't be sad. You go out, and you be happy. Okay."  
"I can't be happy without you."  
"Oh, love." He chuckles lightly, confusing her. "You've never tried."  
"I can feel your pain." She continues. "All of it. Like I'm living it. And I'm sorry."  
"I'm not in pain. Not at all."  
She looks up at him, stretches out her finger, traces his lips, his features. She realises that she wants to keep the moment. Never loose it. Why can't it all just stay like this. Like it should be. Like it needs to be.  
"Why?' She asks eventually.  
He pushes the glasses up his nose, looks at her through the lenses and then to the sky, ignoring her question. "Wasn't it you, Emma, who said that love never ends?"  
"Not always." She finishes.  
"So." He looks back to her, kisses her forehead and scrapes a loose hair from her face. "Make sure it doesn't end. You live, Emma Grayling. Live on."

1

Emma tries not to cry as she makes the walk down the clinical, haunting hospital corridor. It's familiar, but she's never liked it. It's too wide, filled with that sense of dread and sadness. But there's something worse than knowing you'll have to make this journey again. And that's exactly what Emma knows.  
Knowing you'll never make the journey again.  
Alec is waiting for her as she reaches the ward. He's sat up on the bed, looking at the door with anxious, awaiting eyes. Emma hurries over to him, biting down hard on her lip, despite the smile of relief that he's still there. They swap pleasantries as per usual, he kisses her hand and her cheek, and she pulls up a chair as close as she can, burying her head in his shoulder. He looks around the room, the pastel colours hurting his eyes a little, the irony of the 'Get Well Soon' card given to the nurse by the three well wishers who didn't give their names, a gift to a terminally ill man. He's touched by the kindness of them though, in fact of everyone. They've all been so generous and helpful, in looking after him, and agreeing to look after Emma.  
He said goodbye to Jane that afternoon, when her mother left to buy them coffee. He made her promise to ensure Emma's happiness, to ensure her own, to follow her dream. She took it rather well, he thought. She cried, but she understood all the same. He'll keep that last embrace, in his memory, in his head, wherever he goes, not that he believes in an afterlife of sorts, but he's thought about it, and he thinks that he will still go somewhere. Maybe he'll see Emma again, too. One day, if he's lucky. If he wishes hard enough.  
Emma doesn't need to be a genius to know that this is the last time she'll see Alec. She can sense it, not just in his feelings, in his thoughts, but in his eyes, too. It's a thing she doesn't want to believe; she knew it would happen someday, she thought about it, how it would plan out, but she's not ready to loose him. Not yet. She lets him speak, about the littlest, pettiest things, tries not the listen to his slow, irregular breathing or the medicinal beeps of the room, instead concentrates on his words. His voice, the one she has grown to love and cherish. Because if she can't hear them again, she wants to make the most of them now.  
Each time he tries to speak she interrupts him with another irrelevant question. About the weather, the news, anything which comes to mind. She can't make him go on forever, but she can try. She can keep him talking, make him carry on, so that she doesn't have to hear his voice talk about the one thing she's been dreading the entire journey, because that's not what she wants to remember him saying. But Emma can't have everything she wants. That exciting future, that beautiful, magnificent future they have been pulling themselves towards has become something from which they are running away. It's unfair.  
"Emma-" Begins, but is cut off by horrible, screeching cry.  
"Don't." She breathes out sharply. The tears begin to fall. She knows it. She can't stop them.  
"My dear, my love. Please. You can't carry on like this."  
"But you can't..." She originally intends to put another word in here. But she can't say it. It won't come out. "I don't want you to."  
"And still I must. Emma, love, do you really think I want to leave you. I love you. You know that."  
"Of course I do."  
"See. And you remember that. Because everything ends, but what is an end but a new beginning. Don't be sad."  
Emma's eyes, which had been closed so tightly in an attempt to block out the words, began to open slowly, a deep sigh exhaling a wild new idea to which she can cling to. "Will I be able to feel you? I mean, I can feel you now, I felt you before. What is there to say I won't feel you after?"  
"You see." A smile, fully formed and happy, appeared on Alec's face. "Hold my hand, Emma."  
Emma took his hand, kissed it gently, and gripped it, as tight as she could, with as much love and desperation as could she possibly gather.  
And she didn't let go.

**Sorry. I also thought I'd throw in some feels, too. Sorry.**  
**Also, you all know who the three travellers were, right?**


End file.
